


All Day, Every Day

by roboticonography



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Compliant, Evil Peggy Carter, Evil Steve Rogers, F/M, Peggy Carter as Captain America, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:26:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/pseuds/roboticonography
Summary: Steve is on his mission to return the Infinity Stones when his quantum suit glitches, and he finds himself sliding sideways through alternate realities, encountering different versions of himself. None of whom are particularly happy to see him.Can he do this all day? Time will tell!
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 120
Kudos: 324





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indiefic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/gifts).



> **Please note before reading:** this story is rated M because of the level of violence. That includes implied threats of sexual violence. I wasn't sure whether that was strong enough to merit a rape/non-con warning, so instead I've selected "Choose not to use archive warnings." Proceed at your own risk. Additional tags will be added as each new chapter is posted.
> 
> This story was written for Indiefic as part of Steggy Secret Santa 2019.

_Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale_  
_Her infinite variety._  
— William Shakespeare

 _Someday, somewhere—anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life._  
— Pablo Neruda

 _You mess with time, it tends to mess back._  
— Tony Stark

**ASGARD**  
**2013**

Steve knew, objectively, that the time heist could have side effects. There was still a hell of a lot they didn’t know about the quantum realm; neither Bruce nor Scott had an entirely perfect understanding of the equipment; what Bruce had learned from the Ancient One about the flow of time had really only muddied the waters. 

Before Steve’s departure, Bruce and Scott had made at least half a dozen bets on how the mission would go.

Running into a _second_ version of Steve, already on Asgard, had just put Bruce ahead by twenty bucks.

Steve thought it was his reflection at first. The upper levels of the palace were large and dimly-lit, and there was no shortage of mirrors. The royals of Asgard were, on the whole, an aesthetically-pleasing family; the interior design of the palace tended to reflect that, metaphorically and literally.

But when Steve stood still, the figure in the mirror took a step forward.

Steve’s hand moved instinctively to his belt, where he’d stashed the miniaturized case containing the three remaining Infinity Stones. The shrinking tech Scott had fitted him up with had seemed like overkill at the time, but Steve had found a few creative uses for it.

The other Steve mirrored the action—then grinned at him.

Steve knew that grin. Even when it was on his face.

“You’re supposed to be locked up.”

“And you’re no fun at all,” said Loki, in Steve’s voice.

In the days before Thanos, Steve had found Thor’s attitude towards his younger brother perplexing. Loki had tried to murder Thor several times—and, on one occasion, had almost managed to subjugate the entire world. He was, by all accounts, a vicious, amoral, and remarkably petty tyrant. Yet Thor seemed to take the view that he was merely a tricky little bastard.

Having been a tricky little bastard himself once upon a time, Steve felt that this was an overly charitable assessment.

Post-Thanos, however, he was inclined to reconsider.

The last time Steve had encountered the trickster god, he’d been out of the ice only a few weeks. He’d barely figured out how to use a flip phone. And then, suddenly, he was fighting gods and aliens.

Now, here he was, on the downslope to forty, having experienced both time travel and space travel. He’d led an army of Avengers to victory against Thanos and his many murderous children. He was the only person alive who could claim to have beaten Captain America in a fair fight. And his phone was only one iteration away from being the latest on the market.

He felt, in short, refreshingly confident in his ability to handle Loki.

“I don’t want any trouble,” said Steve.

Loki flicked his wrist, shooting out an arc of green lightning. Steve ducked and rolled, landing behind a pillar.

Loki blew the pillar apart.

Steve threw up his hands. “Look. I’m not here to interfere. I was just leaving.”

Not-Steve made an arcane gesture, and plucked a thin little knife right out of the air. He smiled, creepily, then turned the blade on himself.

“Wait, don’t—” Steve gasped at the sudden, sharp pain between his own ribs. “What the _fuck_?!”

Loki’s gleeful expression made Steve look like a real asshole.

Steve had meant what he said about not interfering. He was there to return the Reality Stone, not to mess up the timeline even further than they already had.

That didn’t mean he was about to let Loki toy with him.

Steve took the miniaturized Mjolnir out of his hip pocket, enlarged it, and wiped the smirk off his own face.

The hit must have had an impact, because Loki immediately shifted to his usual form. Steve followed it with another smack. This one knocked Loki clean off his feet.

He stared up at the hammer in Steve’s hand in horror. “ _You?_ Surely not.”

“Don’t worry,” said Steve. “I’m not keeping it.” He gave the hammer one last twirl, for old times’ sake, then tossed it in the air. As usual, Mjolnir sensed his intent, and followed through perfectly.

He had to leave the hammer behind on Asgard anyhow. He couldn’t think of a better place to leave it then right on top of Loki’s chest.

Steve tapped his wrist, bringing his quantum suit fully online. 

Loki’s blade undoubtedly had magical properties: it had gone through the suit without making a hole. However, there was _definitely_ a hole in Steve’s sternum, and he could tell it wasn’t healing. It also hurt like a son of a bitch. He’d have to see what first-aid supplies he could find in 2012.

It was a relief to be going back to Earth. Even if it wasn’t the Earth he knew, he could be relatively certain no one was going to come at him with magic lightning or intangible knives—at least until Bleecker Street.

“You’ll pay for this, Avenger,” Loki snarled, struggling in vain under Mjolnir’s weight.

“Go ahead and send me an invoice.”

Loki shot out his hand, sending a swirl of green sparks in Steve’s direction. 

Steve waved goodbye and hit the button.

**MANHATTAN**  
**2012**

Besides the ability to shrink and grow objects, Steve’s quantum suit had a slew of other helpful features. One of these was a setting that guided him to land in an unoccupied spot, thus avoiding any awkward explanations.

Unfortunately, this often meant appearing some distance away from his target. He materialized in a blind alley behind some dumpsters, fifteen blocks down from Stark Tower, and had no choice but to hoof it.

Another handy aspect of the quantum suit: it could be controlled from his wristwatch. Tony had offered him a heads-up display, similar to the one in the Iron Man armour, but Steve hadn’t felt there was time for him to conquer the learning curve on that one.

Tapping the watch’s touchscreen, he scrolled through various masking options, choosing a set of unremarkable civilian clothes: chinos, t-shirt, windbreaker, ball cap. To Steve’s chagrin, the cap bore the emblem of the New York Yankees—a creative touch just petty enough to be purposeful on Tony’s part.

The suit also had a stealth mode, allowing the wearer to disappear from view completely, but that setting was hell on the battery.

To avoid attracting attention, Steve tried not to clutch at his side like he’d just been stabbed. This was easier said than done. If this was the kind of thing he’d been putting up with, Thor was not only a god—he was a fucking saint.

The closer he got to the Tower, the more things seemed… wrong. Not because anything was out of place, but because _nothing_ was. There were no Chitauri corpses littering the streets, no debris, no dust or smoke, no panicked bystanders—not a single sign of the event that had demolished a significant section of midtown.

Steve quickly checked the date on his watch. A television in a shop window confirmed it: he was in the right place at the right time. But CNN wasn’t giving up any screen real estate to report a portal in the sky or an extraterrestrial invasion. Steve was pretty sure either of those things on its own would have been enough to preempt Rachel Maddow.

The Tower itself didn’t look right, either. Steve remembered that there had been some damage, but this didn’t look like the kind of damage caused by a cosmic swarm; rather, it was the kind of damage wrought by an architect of especially bad taste. Even for Tony Stark, it was over the top.

He reached Times Square, a location that had borne up badly in the Chitauri attack. Not so much as a burnt-out lightbulb. The place was swarmed—but with tourists, not aliens.

What the hell was going on?

Then, for the first time, he saw something out of place in Manhattan circa 2012.

But not the thing he’d expected to see.

The Armed Forces recruitment centre was a mainstay of Times Square, with its outsized digital version of the American flag. Steve had walked by it a dozen times without really thinking about it, except for the extra care he took to avoid being spotted and photographed in such a patriotic location. 

Now, however, the stars and stripes were gone; in their place, a familiar many-armed death’s-head, bright red against a dark background. It seemed to grin at him, mockingly.

Steve’s first instinct was to wonder whether some movie or TV show was filming. He’d seen it before: storefronts with their signs covered up, concert halls advertising non-existent events, fake police stations or fire stations. But there weren’t any trucks or cables or production staff that he could see.

A stunt, then, or a prank? It was hard to imagine anyone getting away with a statement like that, in this town, in such a high-profile spot.

What was more, no one seemed to notice. People were walking by without giving it a second look. A woman in a Tilley hat took a picture of the screen, then snapped another one of the skyline.

Steve turned to follow her line of sight, and found himself looking up at the Tower again. He realized for the first time what bothered him about it. It had the look and feel of many of the HYDRA factories he’d raided during the war: dark, imposing, heavily fortified.

Was HYDRA operating openly in New York? In 2012?

Had the time heist made this possible?

_Was this his fault?_

*

At a total loss for any other course of action, Steve carried on to Stark Tower—or whatever it was that had replaced Stark Tower in this version of reality.

He got his answer in fairly short order; it was hard to miss the giant silver HYDRA emblem emblazoned over the tower’s front entrance.

It was also hard to miss the woman striding out of that same entrance—and here, Steve got his second shock of the day.

The woman was Peggy.

He wondered, for just a second, if he could be imagining all of this. Maybe the fight with Loki hadn’t gone his way, and he was lying on the stone floor of the palace right now, bleeding out from various ghostly knife wounds.

“Steve!” She was beckoning him over.

He froze, gaping at her helplessly.

She started walking towards him.

It wasn’t Peggy as she’d been in 2012. That Peggy had been in her nineties, in the last stages of the illness that would eventually claim her. This Peggy was young, strong, and vital. 

And, not to put too fine a point on it… sexy.

It wasn’t that her outfit was risqué: plum-coloured tunic dress, glossy black pumps, silvery-black leggings that shimmered when she walked. Her hair and makeup weren’t particularly seductive, and her jewellery was simple and stylish. 

It was the _way_ she moved—the unhurried confidence with which she crossed the courtyard. Like she owned it, and everything in it. Which, judging by the way her gaze raked him over, included him.

“Where have you been?”

Steve had no idea how to answer that.

“And what are you wearing?” She jiggled the bill of his cap. “You look like a high school football coach.”

He shrugged.

“Well, practice is cancelled.” She took him by the wrist and began leading him towards the entrance to the tower. “There’s been an utter cock-up with the Tesseract. I need you to go out to the lab tonight and get it sorted.”

“What happened?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Someone can brief you on the jet later. It’s been ages since I’ve had a decent shag. I’m sure there’s a naughty sports metaphor that would work here, but honestly, I can’t be bothered.”

Steve wasn’t quite as naive as he’d been back in the day, but the way she was talking made him blush.

She stopped short. “Is that your blood?”

He glanced down. The nanotech fabric of his quantum suit was behaving exactly like the cotton t-shirt it was pretending to be: soaking up the blood still seeping from the wound in his abdomen.

“I got stabbed. Not quite sure how,” he told her, truthfully.

She seemed more amused than anything. “Let’s get you upstairs and play doctor, then.”

“I’m all right. Actually, I’ve gotta go—”

Her grip on his wrist turned uncomfortably tight. She carried on serenely, dragging him through the main doors as though it were no effort at all.

As they passed the main security desk, the two uniformed HYDRA soldiers behind it saluted her.

Steve felt his stomach drop.

The elevator she led him onto had no buttons on the inside. Peggy swiped a pass card, and they started going up. And up. And up.

The doors finally opened on a gigantic apartment. It was elegant, if somewhat austere: pristine white furniture, beige walls, marble tile floors. It felt like an upscale hotel, or the lobby of a slick marketing agency. Not a place where anyone actually lived.

He followed her through the cavernous living room, past a spotless kitchen, and a bathroom that included a walk-in shower and jacuzzi tub, before finally arriving at a bedroom.

It was a beautiful space: high ceilings, a floor-to-ceiling window on one side looking out over the city. On the outside of the window was a terrace, complete with rose garden, though Steve didn’t see any doors or other openings that led that way.

The bed was bigger than any Steve had ever seen, including the unnecessarily outsized one Tony had provided for him at the Avengers compound. The room had more colour and texture than the rest of the suite: art on the walls, area rugs. The lighting was diffuse, warm and inviting; the bedding was pale gold, with coppery accents that matched the brushed copper wall panel that served as a headboard.

Peggy shoved him onto the bed. The comforter was slippery, in a way that was obviously meant to feel sexy, but Steve just felt off-balance, trapped. She opened a drawer in the bedside table and pulled out a box of first aid supplies. “Shirt off.”

He shimmied out of his jacket awkwardly, shoving it behind him. He couldn’t break contact entirely: the nanotech would cause the illusion to disappear after a few minutes of disconnection. He pulled his shirt up to his chest, tucking the hem under his chin.

The wound was nasty. Steve had been stabbed enough times to know what to expect—but this looked (and smelled) like it was badly infected. He didn’t know how that could have happened so quickly, or at all. He suspected the answer had to do with magic.

“Oh dear,” said Peggy, husky-voiced. 

He still wasn’t sure what to make of her. There were moments when she was a dead ringer for the Peggy he knew, and others when she felt like an impostor wearing Peggy as a disguise. And the fact that she held some position of authority within HYDRA didn’t make sense. He wondered if this was some sort of deep cover—if she was acting as a double agent. 

But that still didn’t answer the question of how a young Peggy Carter was here in 2012 at all.

He watched as she cleaned and disinfected the wound. It was already starting to heal, but she insisted on giving him stitches, despite his objections—and she refused to use the dissolving kind, which meant he’d have to pull them out later. 

She seemed to savour his discomfort, in a way that Steve found deeply unsettling. The Peggy he knew would never take pleasure in hurting him.

After bandaging him up, she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his hip.

Steve tensed, trying not to jump out of his skin.

She tugged at his belt, pulling it free of the buckle. “I can’t take you seriously in these ridiculous clothes.”

Steve knew he should do something— _anything_ —other than just sit there and let her take his pants off. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think _what_. 

He couldn’t risk giving himself away: his mind kept running over the possibility of a strong and stable HYDRA, with apparently vast resources, getting its tentacles on time travel technology—or the remaining Infinity Stones. 

Honey-trapping had never really been part of Steve’s skill set. And even if he’d had any confidence in his ability, physical or emotional, to… take one for the team, the fact that it was _Peggy_ made it impossible to consider it objectively. 

She paused, noticing his sudden inertia. “Are you still pouting about Rumlow? If it makes you feel any better, he was rubbish. Couldn’t manage to get me off more than once.”

Steve took the easy out. “That doesn’t exactly put me in the mood,” he said, honestly.

The playful light in her eyes vanished. “Either get to work or get out of my bed,” she snapped.

He stood up, grabbing his windbreaker.

“Steve, darling. Wait. I’m sorry.”

He turned around.

Before he could react, he was flat on his back on the bed, his wrist pinned to the wall. Magnetic restraints—STRIKE had used these on him before, and he’d barely made it out alive. 

While he was trying to free himself from the first restraint, she managed to clamp down his foot with a second. He was stretched flat, muscles taut. Without enough leverage to curl his arm, it was impossible to struggle his way out.

She held his free arm down, seemingly without effort, and cuffed him again. He tried to use his free leg to kick her off; she elbowed him in the throat, throwing her full weight into it, then kneed him in the balls as a chaser. Everything went white for a second. 

By the time he’d recovered, he was shackled at the wrists and ankles, spread-eagled.

Peggy was kneeling over him. “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?” He felt the edge of a blade on his throat—he hadn’t even seen her pull it out. “Who are you, really?”

“I’m Steve Rogers.”

The blade bit into his skin. “I’m not in the habit of asking twice.” She had an eager, hungry look. She wanted him to resist, so she could cut him.

“No, I swear, I—” Bringing to bear what little acting skill he had, he affected a look of innocence. “I’m not from this world. I don’t know how I got here. I was fighting someone trying to steal the Tesseract—he called himself Loki, he claimed to be a Norse god. There was a flash of blue light, that’s all I remember. Peggy,” he let his voice break, “I don’t understand any of this. Since when do you work for HYDRA?”

Her laugh was so familiar it was like a punch in the gut.

“ _Work_ for HYDRA? Darling. HYDRA works for _me_.”

He didn’t doubt she was telling the truth. The Peggy he knew could have done anything, even back when it meant kicking down every door that closed in her face.

Her look was calculating. She had to have been told about Loki, assuming he’d stolen the cube in this reality as well. And if they’d had it in a lab, she had to know that the cube was capable of opening doorways to other places. He didn’t think HYDRA was in the habit of widely sharing such sensitive information. 

“Assuming any of what you’ve told me is true, why would you let me bring you up here? Surely you’re not that stupid.”

“I trust you,” he said, disarmingly. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

She looked faintly disgusted.

“You just finished patching me up,” he pointed out. “Who else do you know who heals that fast?”

“Me, for one.”

This time, his look of surprise was genuine.

“The Peggy Carter of your world isn’t enhanced?”

He shook his head.

“So you’re all alone.” She said it sympathetically, but clearly the idea pleased her. “What a _hard_ life it must be for you.” 

She squeezed his thigh, kneading the muscle. Steve tried to swallow his dread, acutely conscious of how vulnerable he was right now.

“I frighten you,” she observed, delighted.

“Yeah, threatening to cut my throat will do that.”

“I don’t think it’s that.” Her hand inched upwards. “Have you been with a woman before?”

“Yeah. A few.”

She looked dubious, but didn’t argue. “My Steve was like you, once. Trusting. Innocent. Before the serum expanded his mind… and the rest of him,” she added, with a meaningful glance down at the spot where her hand was headed. “He’s much happier the way he is now. We get on like a house on fire. Of course, that doesn’t mean you and I can’t make a little spark of our own.”

She leaned down to kiss him, but he turned his face aside. She made a displeased sound, and bit him on the cheek—not hard enough to break the skin, but not a love-bite, either.

Something buzzed against his leg, making him jump. 

She moved her hand away from his crotch to take a phone out of her dress pocket. “Carter.”

As she listened, she slid one hand under his shirt, tracing his abs lazily. Steve tried not to give her the satisfaction of squirming. He thought about calling out for help, but he suspected whoever was on the other end of the line was on Peggy’s side, if not on her payroll.

“Where?” she snapped. “Are you sure it’s his body? Forget about ID. ID can be planted. Did anyone take fingerprints?”

Was the serum responsible for the way she was? Or had it simply enhanced what was already there? And what about the Steve of this world—had they really been alike, before the serum changed him? Had this Steve and Peggy been responsible for making HYDRA what it was?

“All right, well… tell Johnson he’s been promoted. And get him to meet me in the conference room on level nine, three minutes.” She threw the phone on the dresser angrily. Turning back to Steve, she cooed, “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I have a little HR issue to resolve.”

“Maybe you could leave me with one hand free,” he said, dropping his voice low. “So that I can really think about your offer.”

“As delightful as that sounds, I’d rather make you wait.” Her grin was wolfish. “And, don’t take this the wrong way, darling, but… I don’t trust you.” She lifted his shirt and slapped his freshly-bandaged wound. Hard. 

He gritted his teeth, trying not to cry out.

“Don’t try to be clever,” she said pleasantly. “It’s not your forte.”

And with that parting shot, she sashayed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

He pulled at the cuffs, trying to slide them across the wall panel to bring his hands closer together. They wouldn’t budge. 

Copper wasn’t strongly magnetic, so whatever was behind the wall was clearly placed there with a specific purpose. A purpose that didn’t include a lot of mobility. A purpose that _did_ include someone of Steve’s exact proportions.

He could only think of one way out that didn’t involve breaking bones.

The suit worked by shrinking Steve down to a size that allowed him to travel in the quantum realm. In order to get small enough, he had to press the right thumb trigger for a count of two seconds. If he pressed it for less than that, he might be able to shrink down small enough to slip out of the cuffs. But the timing was incredibly tricky.

He tapped the button.

The next few minutes were a protracted comedy of errors, but he finally managed to get himself back to the right size, or close enough for it not to matter.

He’d already punched in the coordinates for 2024 when he realized what a catastrophically stupid move that would be. There was no guarantee that going forward from here wouldn’t mean going forward to the future of _this_ version of 2012. And no telling what would happen if there wasn’t a platform there for him to land on.

No. He had to figure out where things had gone sideways.

Steve was smart. He had a layman’s grasp of biology, chemistry, and physics. He’d read at least one book by Stephen Hawking. But he was categorically _not_ a science guy. Tony, and Bruce, and to a lesser extent Scott, were science guys. Steve generally left it to them to do the theorizing. His job was to mediate, to summarize, to keep the conversation on track.

But he was the only one here. So he’d have to give it his best shot.

If this reality had started on a different course in 1943, the split probably wasn’t caused by the time heist. They hadn’t gone back anywhere near that far. Maybe Steve was the one who was out of sync with the timeline, not the other way around.

His best hope was to reset the suit’s operating system, and try another jump to the 2012 coordinates. He’d seen Tony reboot the OS a dozen times to fix glitches, and this was the mother of all glitches. 

The nanotech masking would still work in offline mode—meaning, he wouldn’t lose his clothes—but all of the other features would be disabled for at least five to ten minutes.

Peggy could be back any second. And she’d undoubtedly be pissed if she found him roaming around her apartment.

He’d have to take that chance.

He punched in the sequence for a hard restart. 

The system asked him if he was sure, which was both reassuring and anxiety-inducing. He hit _yes_.

The instant the screen went black, he heard the elevator doors ding.

Steve said a word that would have made Nick Fury proud.

He scanned the room: the only place he could possibly conceal himself was the closet, and that wasn’t much of a game of hide-and-seek. The living room would be the best place to face her: it was a big open space, with access to things he could weaponize. And the faster he acted, the greater his advantage.

Just to be on the safe side, he crumpled up the magnetic cuffs. He didn’t doubt that she had more, but leaving them lying around was asking for trouble.

Silently, he crept down the long hall that opened up into the living room—and froze.

His double was there, lounging in an armchair, scrolling aimlessly through the options on the TV.

There were holes in his jeans, and a blood stain on his grey t-shirt. He needed a shower. He had on a set of dog tags, but over the shirt, and on the same chain. Whatever statement _that_ was supposed to be, it was lost on Steve. He’d stopped wearing his own tags around the time he became a wanted criminal; it would never have occurred to him, even then, to disrespect the sacrifices of men and women he’d fought alongside.

His shield was propped against the side of his chair. It, too, was grimy and splashed with old blood, the patriotic paint job scuffed away.

Clearly, he was _exactly_ the kind of dirtbag who would join HYDRA.

Steve didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe. But his counterpart swivelled in his chair all the same.

“The hell are you supposed to be?”

Steve shrugged. “You probably won’t believe long-lost cousin, huh?”

“Probably not.” Like Peggy, his tone was amiable, yet somehow unpleasant. “She said she had a guy tied up in there. You don’t look tied up to me.”

Steve tossed the crumpled magnetic restraints onto the coffee table.

“How’d you pull that off?”

“I’m you. Sort of.”

Dirtbag Steve switched off the TV and uncoiled slowly out of his chair. There was something menacing about the way he moved. Like a jungle cat on a nature show. Predatory. “Say again?”

Steve checked his peripherals. The elevator was a dodgy proposition at best; the balcony in the bedroom was both too far away and too obvious. That left the living room’s big picture window, which was guaranteed to be reinforced glass. He’d need either the shield, or a running start.

“I’m you,” he repeated. “From another reality.”

“Where you got the serum, I’m guessing?” 

“Not the same version you got.”

“Sad for you.” He shrugged out of his leather jacket, tossing it aside. The sleeves of his grimy t-shirt were tucked up to show off his arms. Steve instantly saw how Peggy had been able to tell them apart.

The tattoo was hard to miss, covering most of his bicep: a rose, American traditional style, and a banner. _Peggy_. It was as obnoxious as the rest of him.

Steve pointed to it. “I was never able to get one to take.” If he could keep himself talking, he might be able to make it out without a struggle. 

He shrugged. “I get it redone every few months. It’s a pain in the ass. But she likes it.”

No need to ask who _she_ was.

“How’d you get here?”

“She brought me home. She thought I was you.”

Something in his eyes went dark. “If you fucked her,” he said, matter-of-factly, “I’ll kill you.”

Steve hazarded a guess: “Like you killed Rumlow?”

“Yeah.”

“She gave me the impression that the two of you weren’t exactly exclusive.”

His nostrils flared. “ _She’s_ not exclusive.”

“Why do you put up with that?”

He snorted. “Are you seriously trying to get me to turn on her? Not gonna happen.”

“I'm just trying to understand,” said Steve evenly. He mirrored the other man’s stance: not escalating, but not backing down. “I don’t get why you’d agree to that. I wouldn’t. And I know how you feel about her.”

“No, you don’t.”

And that was true. Steve had loved Peggy, and loved her still. But he had never, even in his wildest dreams, wanted her to cuff him to a bed and hurt him. His counterpart, meanwhile, was jealous that his Peggy had done it to someone else.

“I know how you’d feel if she died.”

The hit landed. It was only a second, but Steve recognized that look: genuine fear.

“That a threat?” he growled.

Steve shook his head. “Speaking from experience.”

The double stared at him for a long moment. He was angry. Angry that Steve had put that thought into his head. Angry that he couldn’t get it out. 

He made a loose fist and pressed his knuckles to his jaw, turning his face to one side, then the other.

Limbering up.

Shit. _Shit._

“You don’t want to do that.”

“Fight myself? Are you kidding?” He cracked his knuckles. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Here we go again,” Steve muttered.

“What?”

 _Fuck it_ , he thought, and threw a punch.

It wasn’t like fighting his younger self from 2012. This Steve had decades of combat experience on him. What was more, he obviously relished a melee, especially one where he was matched for strength. The shield was right there, but he made no move to pick it up and take the advantage. He didn’t just want to best Steve—he wanted to dominate him, to hurt and humiliate him.

After getting that first lick in, Steve kept his stance closed-off, dodging and blocking any shots that came his way. He knew that the moment he tried to strike again, or went for the shield, his opponent would catch him off-guard. But he also knew that the longer it went on, the more he was giving away about himself.

 _Do something he doesn’t expect_ , he thought.

He took off for the window, the other Steve a half-second behind him—then stopped short and hit the stealth mode button.

Dirtbag Steve, thrown by his sudden disappearance, crashed into him full-force, setting them both off-balance.

Steve threw all his weight back, slamming his counterpart into the marble floor—hard enough to wind him, and hopefully break a few ribs in the process.

He jumped up and put his knee in the other man’s diaphragm, holding him in place with one hand, hammering him in the face with the other.

The dog tags on his chest jumped with every blow. Steve could read the name on both of them: _Barnes, James_.

Steve yanked on the tags, snapping the chain free. “What did you do, you son of a bitch?”

His own face smiled up at him.

The next shot was hard enough to break his counterpart’s jaw. His nose was a crumpled mess. He was starting to choke on his own blood.

Steve picked him up by his filthy shirt and heaved him through several layers of glass.

A second later, he heard the elevator doors slide open.

His watch beeped. The suit was still booting up, but it was back online. He needed to buy a few more minutes.

Hands shaking with adrenaline, he dialed up a new outfit. He couldn’t replicate the grime, but he was able to find distressed jeans, a white undershirt, and motorcycle boots. He ran both hands through his hair, trying to achieve the same messy-on-purpose look. Dirtbag Steve’s jacket and dog tags completed the ensemble.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself, you asshole. I’ve just—” Peggy stopped short, stepping over the mangled remains of a chair. “Christ. What the hell happened here?”

Steve tried to mimic his other self. He dusted his palms together and drawled, “I didn’t like your new pet.”

She frowned. “I told you not to go into my bedroom.”

He shrugged.

“I’ll have to have the decorator in again.” Her tone was almost bored, as though fights to the death were a regular occurrence in her living room. “Go down and get him before he wanders off.”

His instinct was to seize the opening—but it felt off. Her Steve wasn’t the type to meekly obey orders.

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. I’m not your goddamn errand boy.”

She was angry, but there was something else, too: a light in her eyes, a flush to her cheek, all signalling a twisted sort of desire. They got off on this—on being assholes to each other. He struggled to keep the revulsion from showing on his face.

“Go down there before I throw you out after him.”

He took a step closer and leaned down, getting right in her face. “You tell me to _go down_ again,” he said softly, letting his gaze travel down her body, “and I’m gonna get on my knees, on top of all this broken glass, and remind you why one of me is more than enough for you.”

Her face was unreadable. For a second, he thought he might have taken it too far.

But then she pounced on him, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. 

He responded in kind, trying not to flinch—and trying, too, not to enjoy the press of her body against his, as soft and yielding as her mouth was hard and demanding. She was an awful person, a monster. But she was beautiful, and strong, and she clearly knew exactly what he liked. It would have taken someone even more superhuman than Steve not to respond to that.

After several long, uneasy seconds, he pulled away, swiping at his mouth.

She took his face in her hand, her nails digging into his chin and jaw, and looked deep into his eyes. “Who I sleep with,” she said, soft and terrifying, “is immaterial. _You_ were _made_ for me. I _chose_ you. You’re _mine_. Do you understand?”

For one crazy second, he did understand. He could see why his double was ready to kill for her.

He nodded slowly.

“Good.” She put both hands on his chest and gave him a shove. “Go.”

Dirtbag Steve had already given him the perfect line to go out on.

“If you fuck him,” he said coolly, picking up the shield, “I’ll kill him.”

“That seems only fair.” She smiled winsomely, a perfect imitation of the girl he once knew. “Hurry back, my love.”

The second the elevator doors closed, Steve hit the button to jump.


	2. Chapter 2

**MANHATTAN**  
**2012**  
**(again)**

As luck would have it, he landed in the same alley, behind the same dumpster, and had to walk the same fifteen blocks. This time, though, there were encouraging signs of Chitauri destruction along the way.

Stark Tower was where and what it was supposed to be—still an eyesore, but not demonstrably evil. Steve camouflaged himself in a SHIELD uniform and face-shield before going in.

He found a deserted stairwell on the ninth floor. Not the same stairs Hulk had (or would) come barrelling down: these stairs were for employee use, with security gates every few floors. Fortunately, Steve’s watch had a wealth of breaking-and-entering tech on it—courtesy of Scott, who, while he installed it, had felt the need to repeatedly assure Steve that he was out of the game for good, despite having kept up with trends in the field.

Comfortably established on the stairs, Steve managed to crack into a SHIELD comms channel. Amid the chatter, he heard something reassuring: “Captain Rogers is coordinating search and rescue.” 

He didn’t hear any discussion of the Tesseract or Loki, but that could have been due to the fact that he was on a lower-level channel. He listened for a few minutes longer, until he was satisfied that the other Avengers were where they ought to be.

Now came the delicate part. He had to avoid his 2012 self, and it was possible that his 2024 self would be on the scene as well. He also had to ensure that he put the sceptre back where he’d taken it from, or as near to it as possible—which, in all likelihood, would mean turning it over to that asshole Rumlow or one of his cronies. 

He dialed up his 2012 monkey suit, and started down the stairs. The shield he’d taken from his alter-ego was a clear mismatch; there wasn’t much he could do about that, other than blame it on the attack.

He was almost to the lobby when he came face-to-face with Captain America.

She carried a baton instead of a shield; her chestnut hair was pulled back in a familiar, practical style. Instead of a winged cowl, she wore a leather domino mask—but Steve would have recognized the sharp line of her jaw and the brilliance of her dark eyes anywhere.

“What have you come as?” she demanded, gesturing to his suit. Hers was somewhat different in design, though no less garish or form-fitting. The stars and stripes were in evidence, and the red boots. Steve wondered whether Phil Coulson was still a superfan in this reality.

He sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“That’s a shame. I’m not in the mood for a chat.” She flexed her knees, widening her stance.

She stood between him and the nearest exit. The security gate behind him would take precious seconds to unlock or batter down. The stairwell was too narrow for him to drop between flights. He was cornered.

He tried to recall how he’d gotten the upper hand in this situation the last time. Mentioning Bucky wasn’t likely to have the same effect on this Cap that it had on his counterpart, but he did have one ace left up his sleeve.

He got the compass out of his belt compartment, flipped it open, and held it up for her to see.

The effect on Peggy was dramatic. She went pale, and then bright red. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth compressing to a thin line.

And then she said something that made Steve realize the gravity of his error.

“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” he said, a split-second too late. “I—”

She belted him in the mouth.

Peggy had been a brawler in 1943, and that hadn’t changed. She’d also been in better shape than him. That hadn’t changed either.

It was like getting hit by a train. Repeatedly. He blocked her, but she just kept coming. He occasionally made contact, but she didn’t seem to notice. She used her entire body as a blunt instrument, propelling herself towards him with the full force of her enhanced muscles, wielding her electrified baton with brutal efficiency, bashing and shocking him into submission.

“Can we—” He fended off a kick with his shield. “I just—” He dodged a punch that whistled past his cheek, only to have his ear buzzed by the baton a split-second later. “Peggy! Stop hitting me for _five fucking seconds!_ ”

She paused: a fistful of his collar in one hand, the opposite arm still cocked. “You sound like him,” she said. “Why do you sound like Steve?”

“Because I _am_ Steve.” He pulled off his cowl and let her get a good look at his face, or what was left of it. “I’m just a _different_ Steve.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she retorted, looking him up and down. “I wish I could say you were the strangest thing I’d seen today.” She released him. 

He sat down on the stairs. His ears were ringing, and it hurt to breathe. “Is he here? Your Steve Rogers?”

“I bloody hope not.”

“I heard—” Blood was streaming from his nose, getting in his mouth when he tried to talk. He tried to staunch the flow with his sleeve, with mixed success. “Heard them talking about him. On the radio.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Captain Rogers?” he prompted. “Coordinating search and rescue?”

“I was, until you turned up.”

Holy _shit_.

Steve tried to think of something to say. He was in shock, on a number of levels.

She planted a hand on her hip. It was a familiar move; a Peggy Carter circa 1945 move, to be exact. “Where did you come from, exactly?”

“From the future. Sort of. Not your future. _A_ future.” Why was this so goddamn difficult to explain? “Look, I—I have something I have to do. It’s important. But I can’t go back to where I came from, and I don’t know how to go forward from here. Can we talk? Just for a minute? Without you trying to kill me?”

She looked him over, calculating. In that moment, she looked uncannily like the version of Peggy he’d just escaped.

“I’m on my way to the top floor,” she said at last. “If you can manage the stairs. And if you give me any trouble, I’ll throw you off the balcony.”

He snorted, which was a bad idea in his current condition.

“And we’ll get you some ice from the bar.”

“I’m okay,” said Steve automatically, mid-cough.

“Suit yourself. Then we’ll get _me_ some ice from the bar. I’ll top it off with some of Tony Stark’s Hibiki 21, and we’ll all be grand.” 

She stepped over him and started climbing.

It was a long jog up to the penthouse, and Peggy had clearly meant it when she said she wasn’t in the mood to chat. 

Steve, meanwhile, did his level best not to stare at the alternate version of America’s ass.

Tony and Pepper’s living room was a mess of broken glass and upturned furniture. When they arrived, Peggy went straight outside to the terrace. He could hear her talking on the radio, giving instructions on how to go about clearing down the building.

There was a sofa propped against the wall that seemed to be in decent shape, aside from a few scuffs and tears; Steve grabbed it, and set it down in a spot relatively free of debris. 

He unmasked his quantum suit, since the disguise wasn’t serving much purpose. Then, figuring he may as well be comfortable, he switched off the top half entirely, leaving him in his analog undershirt.

Peggy came back in and made her way to the bar, peeling off her gloves. Her knuckles were split and bruised; he doubted his face had done the damage.

As promised, she prepared two glasses: one with ice and whiskey, the other with just ice. She brought the bottle with her, as well as a clean towel, which she tossed in Steve’s general direction. “I can give you fifteen minutes,” she told him, looking askance at his sudden change in attire.

“Nanotech suit,” he said briefly.

“Sure,” she replied, taking up a position at the opposite end of the sofa. “Why not?” She unzipped the top half of her battle armour, shrugging out of it with a sigh of relief. Her outfit, unlike Steve’s, consisted of a sleeveless bodysuit with a jacket overtop. Probably more comfortable; definitely more flexible.

Her arms and shoulders were impressive: broad bands of muscle, sheathed in flawless golden skin. The Peggy he’d known during the war had been in peak fighting shape. This Peggy was a tank. It hadn’t been as evident on the stairs, but she was his height, or nearly; he guessed that their thighs were about the same size around.

No wonder she’d kicked his ass.

Steve used the towel and a bit of his ice water to clean the blood off his face while she sipped her whiskey, making a sound of deep contentment.

“Does it do anything for you?” he asked.

“At a thousand dollars a bottle, I’d expect it to keep my house and do my taxes.” She poured herself a top-up. “It barely touches me, but I enjoy it.”

“You should ask Thor. He’s got the good stuff.”

“Space booze?” She looked intrigued. 

“Yeah. Go easy, though. At least the first time.”

“Thanks for the tip.” She pointed to the dried blood on his undershirt. “What happened there?”

“I got stabbed. By a future Loki, funny enough.” He patted his side experimentally; it was a little sore, but nowhere near as bad as it had been.

“You’re having quite a day,” she said dryly.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Try me.”

He briefed her on the time heist, and his mission: not every single twist and turn, but a general outline. She was surprisingly calm about it, listening patiently and asking clarifying questions where needed. Though, considering what she’d just dealt with, learning about Thanos was probably the cherry on the alien invasion sundae.

“It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve come across,” she said at last. “I can put you in touch with Tony Stark, if you’d like. Or we could try Hank Pym, though I’ve no idea whether he’s still alive.”

She relaxed into the cushions, swinging her legs up. He moved back to give her as much room as he could; the sofa was nice to look at, but totally wrong for a person their size. And she had to be exhausted.

Steve wasn’t sure going to Tony was the right play. He remembered him being in especially rough shape after the fight—though none of them had realized quite how bad it was, until the whole Ultron debacle. And Hank Pym was a wild card, to say the least.

“What would you do?”

She glanced up from her drink, surprised. “Me?”

“Yeah.” She wasn’t his Peggy. But he still trusted her opinion.

“Well… I suppose I’d backtrack to before the problem began. Clean code, so to speak. When did you first notice it?”

“After I left Asgard—wait.” Loki’s unscheduled appearance had struck him as merely inconvenient, the result of Tony’s miscalculation in 2012. But what if that had been the first sign of the problem? If so, he’d left at least one of the stones in an alternate timeline. With no way to get it back. “Fuck.”

“All right, buck up,” said Peggy, briskly. “What was the earliest point you travelled back to during your… time burglary, was it?”

“Time heist.”

She nodded impatiently.

“Chronologically? The seventies.”

“I’d start there. If everything seems normal, work forward.”

It wasn’t the worst idea. He knew _he_ hadn’t disturbed anything, but maybe Tony had said something to Howard, or left some piece of equipment behind for him to find. Howard could have been the one to change something around the time of Project Rebirth. That seemed to be the common point of divergence.

“Might be worth a shot,” he mused.

She downed the rest of her whiskey in one swallow. “You’re welcome.”

Steve was wildly curious about how she’d ended up sharing his last name. He supposed he had nothing to lose by asking. 

“So you—I mean, you and your Steve, I assume, since you’re Captain Rogers, and not Captain Carter…”

“Yes?”

He gestured.

“The next time you have to convince someone that you’re Steve Rogers, I recommend trying to speak in full sentences,” she said, with a wry smile.

“Hey.” He grinned. “Be nice.”

“Steve and I are still married, yes.” 

“Are? Still?”

“Next year is our platinum anniversary. There’s a registry, if you’re feeling generous.”

Steve did the math. “You got married in ‘43?”

“There wasn’t much call to wait.”

“He’s small, isn’t he?” That was why she hadn’t recognized him straight away.

She nodded.

“You got the serum instead of me. Him.”

“Actually, he had it first. It fixed his respiratory issues and his eyesight. He was able to go overseas and fight, which was all he was after when he signed up. But there was none of… this business.” She waved her hands, encompassing the entirety of his person.

“This business?” he repeated, amused.

“The height. And the muscles.”

“You know, some people kinda like the business.” He distinctly remembered Peggy being one of those people. “Seems to me like you got a little of the business yourself.”

“I’ll give _you_ the business in a minute.” It was hard to tell, with the sinking sun painting a golden wash over the room, but he got the impression that she was blushing faintly.

The first time he’d spoken with Peggy Carter, beyond the commands she’d issued in training, Steve had instantly recognized a kindred spirit—someone whose struggles and triumphs, while not identical, paralleled his own.

Talking to Captain Peggy Rogers, he felt the thrill of that first connection all over again.

Impulsively, he asked, “How tall are you?”

“A hair shy of six feet, with my boots off. How much do you bench?”

“Comfortably, with reps? Twelve hundred. You?”

“Fifteen hundred.”

Steve whistled. “How fast is your mile?”

“I’ve done it in two minutes, though I prefer not to make a habit of it. You?”

“Just under a minute, flat-out.”

She nodded appreciatively.

Experience and training aside, they were evenly matched: she was stronger, he was faster. He imagined sparring with her—with protective gear, and more room to maneuver. The two of them in close combat, working up a sweat. No holds barred.

The idea was appealing. A little too appealing. And the way she was looking him over suggested he wasn’t the only one thinking it.

“So…” He cast about for a topic _other_ than their physical compatibility. “Why do you think it worked on you, but not him?”

“Mine wasn’t only the serum. Howard had this theory about using radiation therapy to jump-start the reaction, but the project didn’t have funding for the number of generators we needed to power his equipment. Steve was given the serum infusion alone. Then Colonel Phillips was killed—supposedly it was an accident, but none of us ever believed that.” She looked down, swirled the ice in her glass. “Without him, the project was shut down. Before we closed up shop, Howard bribed some city official to get access to the power grid, and he and Abe Erskine ran the Vita-Ray experiment on me. In the middle of the night. During a thunderstorm. It was all very Bride of Frankenstein.”

“How much trouble did you get in?”

“I was dismissed from my secondment with the SSR and packed off back to Whitehall. Abe was very nearly deported, but Howard was able to stop it.”

They both went quiet. Steve moved the cold glass from his eye to the bridge of his nose. 

“Come here.” She leaned towards him, taking the glass from his hand. “Let’s have a look.”

She touched his chin, then his jaw, making a sympathetic noise each time he winced. 

“You do good work,” he murmured.

“I do indeed.” She laid her palm against his cheek. “Get your hands up faster next time.”

His head felt like a ripe melon. He was pretty sure he was going to have a hell of a shiner. Without the helmet, she’d have busted his skull.

But her hands were warm. They felt good on his skin. He could smell the day on her: concrete dust, smoke, and sweat, and underneath all of that, improbably, the faintest scent of lavender.

Peggy had always used lavender during the war, to freshen up whatever drawer or trunk or suitcase she was living out of. Even in the nursing home, which was supposed to be a scent-free facility, she’d managed to secret away the occasional sachet.

“What’s wrong?”

“I—nothing, you—” _Don’t say it_ , he told himself sternly, before saying it anyway: “You smell good.”

“Stop talking nonsense.” Her voice and her look were soft. “I smell like a literal trash fire.”

“You smell like her.”

She pulled back, looking slightly stunned.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s weird. And inappropriate.”

“I’ve been noticing it too,” she said quietly. “You’re so much like him. Especially up close.”

“Right now?” He grinned. “He must look like ten miles of bad road.”

“He’s a handsome old devil. And a shameless flirt, so don’t think I didn’t see you coming a mile off.” She poured him a generous ration of Tony Stark’s expensive whiskey. “See if that’ll take the edge off. Down the hatch.”

He knocked it back. To his surprise, he did feel a little better.

“Finish your story,” he said, helping himself to the bottle. “How’d you go from getting kicked out of the SSR to being Captain America?”

“I was assigned to infiltrate a touring USO show. We had intel that there were HYDRA operatives posing as American performers, in order to gain access to military facilities and personnel. I could neither sing nor dance, but I could do a few parlour tricks—lifting weights, that sort of thing. So I wore a mask and a wig, I put on an American accent. My stage name was Lady Liberty, if you can believe it.”

Steve absolutely could believe it.

“She was a good cover—I fooled people I’d worked with for ages. Even up close. No one connected the blonde American bombshell with the unremarkable English girl.”

“Nothing about you was ever unremarkable, Peggy.”

She prodded him with her toe. “Stop. It would be very boring to have to kick your arse again.”

“In my defense, I wasn’t exactly _trying_ —”

“No, I agree, it was very lacklustre flirting. All the same, Steve.” Her teasing smile faded. “It’s not on.”

It was the first time she’d called him by his name. She wasn’t only warning him to back off, he realized. She was reminding herself.

“My bad,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“When I was touring in Europe, I learned that Steve’s unit had gone missing. Taken prisoner by HYDRA. We weren’t exactly—we’d been writing to each other, but there was never any sort of formal arrangement. There simply wasn’t time. But I loved him. So I left the tour, went to Austria, and brought him home. Him, and a few hundred other men who happened to be locked up along with him.”

She reached for her jacket, and pulled out an engraved silver case. It was a bit battered, and tarnished around the edges. She flipped it open to reveal a creased black-and-white photo, secured in place by the elastic bands designed to hold cigarettes.

The photo showed small Steve, sitting up in a hospital bed, one arm in a sling. Peggy was seated at his side, wearing a smart-looking suit, her hair in curls. His good hand was clasped in both of hers. The two of them were beaming: Peggy at the camera, Steve at her.

“We were married at the 74th General Hospital, by an army chaplain, at ten in the morning. And in the afternoon, I went back to work under a new set of orders and a new code name.” She closed the case and put it away carefully.

“Why Captain America? You’re British.”

“American by marriage,” she corrected him, regally. “And it was the least sexist of the available options. I also refused to fight in a pair of sequinned tap pants.”

“Yeah, same here.”

“Your world’s loss,” she said, with a cavalier wink.

Steve tried not to, but he couldn’t help swooning a little.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What _about_ me?”

“Well, I’ve told you about my life. I’m rather curious about your version.”

Steve was at a loss. His version was, all told, kind of a downer. But he didn’t want to lie.

“The Peggy Carter I knew never got the serum,” he said. “But she did amazing things. She stayed with the SSR until after the war. She finished a doctorate, she was the first director of SHIELD…” Steve felt like he was giving a fucking eulogy. He stared angrily into the middle distance, wanting to break something.

She looked at him shrewdly. “You were never together, I take it?”

“Uh, no. I was out of the picture for a while, and she married someone else. We did manage to reconnect later on, as friends.”

“Near the end of her life.” It wasn’t a question.

“It didn’t feel like that at the time. When I saw her again, it was almost like we’d never been apart. She was still so sharp—quicker with a comeback than anyone I’ve ever met. She’d tell me off if she felt I needed it. But at the same time, I could talk to her about whatever was going on with me. She always gave me good advice, even if I was sometimes too dumb to listen. And it’s not like we ever stopped caring about each other. It was just… bad timing.”

Peggy’s cell phone rang.

“Speaking of bad timing,” she said, with an apologetic look. “Hello, darling. Yes, I’m still here. Yes. One second, all right?” She went outside to the terrace, sliding the glass door shut after her.

Somewhere, an air vent was rattling. Steve tried to focus on that, and give Peggy her privacy.

He could have been wrong, but he suspected she hadn’t made the guess about his Peggy being gone simply because she was an astute listener. Even without asthma, ninety-four was already long odds.

She hadn’t beaten him to a pulp because he’d posed any particular threat to her. She’d done it because she was afraid of something strength alone couldn’t solve.

He knew the feeling. The day he’d gotten that text, he’d gone completely off the rails. If he could have aimed his rage at the person responsible, he would have. As it was, he’d made a hell of a mess aiming it at everybody else.

_Shared life experience_ , he’d said to Natasha, a lifetime ago. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.

She wasn’t gone long, but she came back inside looking considerably more relaxed. It occurred to him then that she must have been worried about her Steve while the attack was going on. Did they live in the city? He hadn’t even thought to ask. He’d been completely focused on his own problems.

“Is he okay?”

“That’s a question with a complicated answer,” she said, sounding suddenly tired. “Just now, though, he’s fine, aside from his arthritis playing him up a bit. He wanted to lecture me about not sorting the recycling properly.”

“Does he know what you’re out here doing?”

“Yes, but he’s used to it. I think he’d be far more impressed if I knew which plastics went in the blue bin.” She smiled fondly. “How’s your head?”

“Still attached. I think.”

The mood had shifted, the pleasurable tension between them evaporating. Steve felt relieved, if slightly disappointed.

She drained her glass, then picked up her jacket. “You’re looking better. I’m sorry about the mix-up.”

“No problem. Thanks for the talk.”

“Likewise.”

He debated whether to warn her about SHIELD, but decided against it. Things had unfolded differently here. If there was no threat, he could make everything worse by conjuring one. And, clearly, she could handle herself better than he could.

She knew that Thanos was coming, and that the Avengers were Earth’s best defense against him. It would have to be enough.

“Godspeed, Captain Rogers.” She said it solemnly, but there was a glimmer of amusement in her eyes.

“Same to you, Captain Rogers.”

He didn’t turn to watch her go.

Steve sat and finished the rest of the bottle, watching the setting sun bleed out along the skyline. It would be a shame, he reasoned, to waste either the whiskey or the view. He didn’t know when he’d get the chance to have either again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The comparative stats on the two Captain Americas come from a variety of sources across the internets. I'm not invested enough to back a particular position, I just wanted them to spit some impossibly impressive accomplishments at one another. I recommend Googling "How much can Captain America bench" and "How fast can Captain America run" for some deep geekery on either topic.
> 
> The 74th General Hospital is probably an unlikely choice for Steve's convalescence, but it worked as a throwaway line in the story. For those who are curious: [WW2 film offers rare glimpse of life at US hospital in England](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-gloucestershire-35745059/ww2-film-offers-rare-glimpse-of-life-at-us-hospital-in-england)


	3. Chapter 3

**NEW JERSEY**   
**1970**

On his last trip to Camp Lehigh, Steve had avoided the sub-basement. This time, there was no getting around it: the easiest way to see if he was on the right track was to check whether or not the Tesseract was gone. 

The layout was different than it had been in 2014, with long rows of shelves and equipment filling most of the space that would eventually become Arnim Zola’s brain.

But he soon found exactly what he’d dreaded seeing: a reinforced double door, windowless, with a neat hand-lettered sign affixed at eye level. _DANGER. Radioactive material. For access, please see Dr. Zola._

Using his nanotech sunglasses, Steve scanned through the door. There was no radioactive material, of course. The walls were already lined with tall computer memory banks, the first of dozens that would be installed down here.

If Steve did his job right—if he put everything back where it was supposed to be and went on home—Zola and HYDRA would torture Bucky for decades to come. They would kill Howard and his wife. They would destroy Peggy’s life’s work. They would set in motion the events that would turn the Avengers against one another, ensuring that they were out of touch and scattered when Thanos launched his attack on Earth.

He could change all of it. Now, right now. He could destroy the computer banks. He could find Zola and get rid of him, quietly, and make sure the evidence of what HYDRA had already done found its way onto Peggy’s radar. Tony wouldn’t lose his parents so young. Bucky could get the help he needed. Natasha would never be forced to become a killer.

Was it the most forward-thinking move he could make? Impossible to say. In the new timeline, Tony might never become Iron Man. Natasha might never join SHIELD. The Avengers wouldn’t exist, at least not in the form Steve had known them. Earth might be defenseless against an extraterrestrial threat—but then again, there was no guarantee that the Avengers were the best possible defense Earth could mount.

Was keeping his friends safe, not knowing the final cost, the right thing to do? That was the real question.

And Steve didn’t have the answer.

“Hands up,” said a familiar voice behind him. And there it was: proof, indisputable, that he still wasn’t in the right timeline.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” said Steve under his breath.

“Come on. Let’s see ‘em.”

He raised his arms and turned, slowly, to face himself. 

Or rather, an older version of himself, complete with era-appropriate suit, tie, and extremely unflattering sideburns and moustache. 

They were roughly the same height, accounting for differences in footwear; he obviously hadn’t travelled into Peggy Rogers’s past, or his own. There was no way to know who or what he’d find here, and no one he could trust—not even himself.

The other Steve had his sidearm out and pointed squarely at Steve’s chest, at a range that was certain to do him serious damage no matter how fast he dodged. “Turn it off,” he ordered.

“What?”

“Whatever it is. However you’re doing that. Turn it off, and let’s see your real face.”

Steve sighed heavily. Banging his head against a brick wall would have made a nice change of pace. “I know it’s hard to swallow, but this _is_ my real face. Because I’m you.”

“I don’t remember my face being so puffy. And what’s with the shades? Too bright down here for you?”

Starsky-and-Hutch Edition Steve was rapidly becoming his least favourite Steve to date. Including either of the Steves who had tried to murder him.

“Look,” he said, trying desperately to inject some enthusiasm into his tone. “Ask me something. Anything up until about the end of the war. I‘m guessing that’s where our timelines part company.”

“Yeah, I saw that episode of Star Trek. Nice try.”

Steve had never actually gotten around to watching that.

“You got me,” he said. “It’s an effect. The switch is on my wristwatch. I’m gonna move my hands so I can see the dial, and then I’ll turn it off. Okay?”

Older Steve nodded.

Steve slowly lowered his arms. “I’m really sorry about this,” he said, honestly.

Then he hit the stealth mode button and punched himself in the face.

He took off as fast as he could, running away from the lift to throw himself off the scent. There was a ventilation shaft in the floor he could use to escape, if he could just get to it.

His alter-ego was already on his tail, tracking the sound of his footfalls, moving to head him off.

His watch beeped a warning: the suit’s fuel cells were critically low. It was possible to charge the nanotech housing using an ordinary AC outlet, but he doubted his other self would let him call a time-out.

He ducked behind a reinforced shelf and deactivated stealth mode.

The other Steve came out of nowhere, tackling him to the ground.

For a minute or so, they grappled, ineffectively, before Steve managed to brace his heel against the heavy shelf and jam a well-placed knee into his opponent’s groin. Taking a page from Peggy’s playbook, he followed this up with a vicious elbow to the throat. It worked just as well on his double as it had on him.

He stood up—and felt a searing pain in the centre of his back. Lightning impaled him, welding him to the spot; his limbs locked up, his field of vision going grey around the edges. His watch buzzed frantically, signaling a disruption in his biofeedback.

He seemed to take an eternity to fall—long enough that he had time to wonder, idly, whether this was what a heart attack felt like.

He hit the concrete floor chest-first, knocking the air out of his lungs. He tried to heave himself back up, but his hands and feet wouldn’t cooperate. Something sharp was poking him right in the tailbone.

“I’d stay down if I were you,” warned his counterpart in a hoarse whisper.

“You _are_ me, asshole!”

Which was when a second bolt of lightning hit him in the ass.

“That was overkill,” said his own, distant voice.

A second, much closer voice replied, “You’re getting soft, darling.”

Steve blacked out.

*

He woke up in a hard chair, slumped over a flat surface. The room seemed familiar, though it took him a second to place it; he’d seen it last from a different angle. It was the bullpen that adjoined the director’s office.

The office, glimpsed through the window, was dark, but a sliver of light illuminated the name stenciled on the glass:

_MARGARET ROGERS_   
_DIRECTOR_

His head was throbbing, his vision slightly blurred. He felt like he might throw up. All of this was almost certainly an after-effect of having been tased—twice—combined with the thorough beating Captain Peggy had given him. Finishing off that bottle of whiskey back in 2012 had probably not been the best idea, either.

He lifted his head and took stock of the situation: his wrists were shackled to the underside of the solid wooden table, which appeared to be bolted to the floor. On the table in front of him were his watch, a Dixie cup of hot tea, and a pad and pencil.

“Oh, good,” said Director Rogers, pleasantly. “You’re awake.” 

She was the same Peggy he’d glimpsed through the bullpen window on his first trip to this time. The girl he’d known during the war, with a shorter haircut, paler lipstick, and a few more smile lines. And something else—a steely self-possession that spoke to both age and experience. Even if they’d never met before, in any lifetime, it would have been instantly clear who was in charge of this situation. And it wasn’t him.

The impression of total authority was only slightly undercut by the fact that she had a sturdy black umbrella hooked over her arm, as though she expected a change of weather inside SHIELD’s underground stronghold.

Just over her shoulder, on the other side of the glass, there was movement in the shadows.

“We’ll start with the easy questions.” She sat down opposite him and took a leisurely sip of her tea, resting the umbrella across her lap. “Name, occupation, and the purpose of your visit.”

“Steve Rogers,” he said. “Time traveller. And, so far, making a hell of a mess.”

Peggy’s expression of polite disinterest didn’t change.

“Ask me anything you want. Anything before 1945.”

“You expect me to believe you came here from 1945?”

“No. I came here from 2024. But in 1945, I crashed a HYDRA bomber powered by the Tesseract into the Atlantic Ocean. I was in suspended animation for almost seventy years. I’m guessing that didn’t happen to your Steve, since he’s next door eavesdropping?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You don’t have to answer that. It’s fine. But go on and ask me something.”

“I’m not interested in parlour tricks, thank you.” She held up his watch. “Tell me about this.”

“Peggy,” he said slowly. “Put that down.”

“You used it earlier to disappear.” Nonchalantly, she put it to her ear and gave it a shake. Her thumb was dangerously close to the touch screen. “Our research department should be able to tell me exactly how you managed that.”

Which would mean putting time travel technology straight into the hands of HYDRA.

“You can’t do that.”

“I assure you, I can,” she said coolly. “But if you’d rather I didn’t, this is your opportunity to explain yourself.”

Steve took a deep breath. 

He didn’t trust SHIELD. He only half-trusted his other self. But he trusted Peggy Carter with his life.

“I’m wearing a special time travel suit, controlled by that watch. But it’s broken. It keeps sending me to different versions of the reality I came from. And I don’t know how to fix it. If you hit the wrong button, you’re gonna send me off to God knows where, without any way to get home.”

“And where is this time travel suit? Do you have it on under that? Time travel underwear?”

A half-dozen quips sprang to mind, but Steve didn’t like his chances of survival if he voiced any of them. “It’s disguised as regular clothes right now.”

She gave him a skeptical once-over.

“Look. You don’t have to give the watch back to me until you’re convinced. But please, don’t turn it over to your research lab.”

“I see. And how do you plan to convince me that you’re Steve Rogers?”

She’d already told him that she wasn’t going to be swayed by ‘parlour tricks.’ There was only one other thing he could think of.

He stood up and yanked on the chain anchoring him to the table.

It didn’t feel like it was going to give, at first—and then, abruptly, his hands were free and the table was on its side.

Peggy was already on her feet, spilt tea dripping from her skirt. She had the umbrella pointed at him in a way that suggested its true purpose, which he guessed involved some sort of high-voltage electrical charge.

Steve sighed, crossing his arms reflexively. “Sorry about the mess.”

Her gaze darted to his face. He knew that look, or thought he did: he’d piqued her interest.

A second later, her husband crashed into the room, busting the lock on the door in the process.

Peggy looked equally exasperated with both of them.

“I leave you alone for five minutes, and you’re asking to see his underwear?”

She made a vain attempt to blot her skirt, one-handed, keeping her umbrella trained on her quarry. “I didn’t ask. He offered. Hands where I can see them,” she added to Steve, making an upwards gesture with the umbrella.

He complied.

“I couldn’t get Howard. He’s still at the hospital. But Jarvis told me—”

“Steve,” said Peggy sharply.

He made a comical face. “If he’s me from the future, he already knows all about it.”

The meaning behind Tony’s ‘vaguely-exact’ date selection suddenly clicked. Of course. _That_ was how he’d known the precise date Howard would be in New Jersey.

“They had a boy,” said Steve. “They’re going to call him Anthony. Tony for short.”

Peggy looked at her husband.

He nodded slowly.

She turned back to Steve, examining his face. Whatever she read there must have convinced her: without a word, she slid the wristwatch to him across the table.

Steve put it on, and demasked his quantum suit.

“Bloody hell,” said Peggy, lowering her umbrella. “What now?”

*

After a lengthy conference in Peggy’s office, the Rogerses decided they would hide Steve at their house, until they could get Howard to pay a visit. The other Steve seemed to feel that Howard would be able to help repair the quantum suit, or at least tell them what the problem was; Peggy was wary of showing it to him, but agreed that there weren’t many other options.

They drove home with Steve in the trunk of their car, enabling him to slip into their house through the garage, unseen.

The moment they were inside, Peggy made a bee-line for the kitchen. The two Steves took up seats at opposite ends of the living room couch, facing the tiniest television Steve had ever seen.

There was a portrait on the mantel: Steve and Peggy and two fresh-faced, dark-haired youngsters. The little boy had a brush cut and a button nose. The girl, slightly older, had Peggy’s wide, dimpled smile.

Steve pointed to the photo. “Your kids?”

“Uh huh.”

“How old?”

“Max just turned sixteen. Isabel’s twenty-four. She lives upstate. Had a baby last week.”

“You’re _grandparents_?”

The older man laughed indulgently. “Yeah, I know. I can’t believe it either. We missed the birth, but I’m hoping to get out there on the weekend. Peggy too—if she can tear herself away from work,” he said loudly.

As if the jibe had summoned her, Peggy appeared in the dining room. “Steve!”

His alter-ego grinned at him before calling back, “Which one?”

“Whichever one of you is going to eat these sandwiches,” said Peggy, indifferently, setting a platter on the table.

Steve approached curiously. She’d made a pile of them: white bread, the cut sides edged in bright yellow mustard. Some had meat, while others appeared to be cheese and some kind of lettuce.

“We don’t have much in,” said Peggy, handing him a plate.

“It’s nice of you to make anything. Thank you.”

She smiled, and gestured for him to help himself.

Older Steve ambled in, looking unenthused. “You didn’t put cucumber on ‘em, did you?” He poked at one of the sandwich halves. “Is that watercress?”

She glared, shoving a plate at him. “We have a _guest_.”

“So? He doesn’t like cucumber either.”

Which was accurate, but Steve was tired of listening to him give Peggy attitude over every little thing.

So, instead of agreeing, he took a bite of his cheese-and-cucumber sandwich, smiled sweetly and said, “It’s perfect.”

“It’s nice to see one of you has some manners.” She patted his shoulder before going back into the kitchen.

His counterpart elbowed him.

Steve shrugged, and pointedly shoved the entire rest of the sandwich into his mouth. It tasted like soap.

Peggy returned a few minutes later, and put a floral-patterned mug on the table next to his hand. “I assume you both take your tea the same way.”

Steve had never cared for tea, but he wasn’t about to turn down any sort of hospitality.

“Where’s Max right now?” he asked. He wasn’t a parent, but eleven p.m. on a weeknight seemed a little late for a high school kid to be out on the town.

“School trip,” said his double. “You can take his room for now. If you’re still here on Sunday, we’ll have to find you somewhere else to stay.”

Steve nodded. The thought of being stuck with the Rogerses in their suburban cracker-box for an entire week was a depressing one, never mind longer than that. 

“You can have the den,” Peggy interjected.

“I think he’d be more comfortable upstairs.”

“You can’t be serious. Max barely fits in that bed, and he’s still growing.”

“Boots,” he protested.

At first, Steve assumed there was a cat he hadn’t seen. But the nickname appeared to belong to Peggy, who ignored her husband’s objection entirely, declaring, “Good, that’s settled. It’s a sofa bed,” she added, to Steve. He couldn’t quite tell if the comment was meant as an apology, an explanation, or merely a point of interest.

“Sounds great.”

*

Once they’d eaten, his counterpart ushered him down to the basement. After showing him the closet-sized half-bathroom and the strange round knob that controlled the lights, he handed him a pile of clothing and a beat-up leather Dopp kit, and made his retreat.

Steve did a slow circuit of the room. It was a typical example of its time—wood-paneled walls, thick mustard-coloured carpeting, low blocky furniture upholstered in mossy greens and browns. It appeared to be a multi-purpose space: there was a scratched-up desk, with a typewriter that looked like it had seen better days; a small laundry area; a wall of bookshelves; a cabinet containing records, along with a record player; and, in the far corner, the pullout couch Peggy had mentioned, currently in sofa mode.

The wall and the shelves were lined with framed snapshots and school portraits. The Rogerses had taken quite a few family road trips over the years: Yellowstone Park, Mount Rushmore, Disneyland. Teenage Max was tall and gangly, with dark eyes like Peggy’s. Isabel wore cat’s-eye glasses in her high school graduation picture, her hair in a blunt bob.

A black-and-white photo on a lower shelf caught his eye: a picture of their wedding party, taken on the steps of an ancient-looking church. Howard was there, and the guys from Steve’s unit, as well as a few smartly-dressed women Steve didn’t recognize, who he supposed must be Peggy’s friends. 

And beside Steve, in his dress uniform, his intact left arm slung over Steve’s shoulder, was Bucky.

The groom looked happy, if slightly stupefied. The bride, centered in the shot, was incandescent.

Steve’s stomach was in knots. He knew he ought to be happy for them—happy that somewhere out there, some version of himself was living the life he’d always wanted. But instead, he just felt hollow inside.

He didn’t know what this meant for HYDRA. He wasn’t naive enough to think that Bucky was the only person they’d ever abducted. And he’d seen proof that Zola still had big plans.

Hearing the upstairs door open, he straightened up quickly.

Peggy paused at the top of the stairs before making her way down, a stack of sheets and pillows under one arm. She placed these on the couch, along with a wool blanket. “I’m sorry it’s such a rubbish tip,” she said, automatically.

“Yeah, I don’t know how you live with yourself,” said Steve, wryly. The room was perfectly tidy, of course.

“You’re welcome to spend the night on the front step.” A gleam in her eye belied her stern expression.

He smiled, and raised his hands in surrender.

“The settee is a bit tricky,” she told him. “Just give a shout if you find you can’t manage. And help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you’re still hungry, or thirsty.”

Steve nodded.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No, ma’am. Thank you.”

“Don’t call me that. It makes me feel ancient.” Her smile faded as she caught sight of the frame in his hand.

“Sorry.” He bent down and carefully replaced it.

Her voice and her eyes were soft. “Don’t apologize.”

To his surprise, she reached up and enfolded him in a hug.

“Thank you,” he repeated—unsure whether he was thanking her for the place to sleep, the sandwiches, or the kindness of her embrace. Maybe all of it.

Her hand cradled the back of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, pressing his face into her shoulder.

He wanted to tell her that he was tired of floating through the seemingly infinite kaleidoscope of his own life. Tired of watching his greatest failures play out in an endless loop. Tired of carrying the fate of at least one universe, and maybe all universes, in his pocket.

He wanted to tell her that he’d missed her—that whenever he was uncertain about something, he would ask himself what she’d have done in the same situation.

He wanted to tell her about Zola—about the parasite that would grow to engulf her life’s work; about everything she and her Steve stood to lose.

But the words wouldn’t come.

The best he could do was a hoarse, “I’m sorry.”

“Stop it.” She rubbed his back, briskly, up and down. “You’re just knackered, that’s all. You need a good night’s sleep.” She sniffed him, then added, “And maybe a shower. Use the one on the top floor.”

He gave a weak chuckle. “Will do.”

*

The shower did help. It felt good to get out of the quantum suit. The hot water was a signal to his body that it could finally relax. And there was no family memorabilia in the avocado-green bathroom, providing him with some small respite.

The grooming kit included a pair of tweezers, which he used to dig the stitches out of his side.

When he returned to the basement, he realized that, through the floor vents, he could hear everything going on above him in their bedroom and the adjoining ensuite. That was why his older self had tried to make a case for him sleeping upstairs, he realized.

They weren’t getting romantic, at least—though after twenty-five years, he supposed the novelty of that might wear off. 

His opposite number was already in bed. Peggy was in the bathroom, gleefully plotting to commandeer her new grandchild on the weekend.

“You’re not listening,” she remarked, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“No, I heard you.”

She spat, then ran the tap. “Well?”

“Well, what? You’re gonna roll into town like a tank and take charge of the whole operation. Regardless of what I or Isabel or anyone else have to say about it.”

The bedsprings groaned. “You love it when I’m a tank.”

“Mm-hm.”

They were quiet for a minute or two, and then she asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. What about you?”

“It’s my worst nightmare come to life,” she retorted. “I can barely tolerate one of you in my house.”

There were a few creaks of movement that said otherwise.

“Howard’ll get him home.” His confidence was enviable, if somewhat baffling.

“I don’t know if he wants to go home,” said Peggy, astutely. “He seems very lonely.”

“Well, you can’t keep him.”

“Can’t I? He’s awfully handsome,” she teased. “I don’t remember you being so good-looking at that age.”

“Okay, calm down.”

“Is it still bigamy if it’s just you twice over?”

“Boots!”

Steve pulled the pillow over his head, reducing the conversation above his head to a dull murmur.

It was one thing to wonder whether he and Peggy could have made a life together. It was another thing to see it up close—to lie in their den, surrounded by framed photos of their kids and souvenirs of their travels. To listen to the two of them going to sleep in the same bed, the same way they did every night, blissfully ignorant of how close they’d come to not having any of it.

His life didn’t unfold the way it did because it was some grand, tragic inevitability. It was all just a stupid accident. There were thousands of other ways it might have happened. And in most of them, it seemed, he and Peggy had gotten at least a taste of happiness together. Even in the version of reality where they were both murdering sociopaths, they’d somehow managed to have that. 

It wasn’t about what you deserved. It wasn’t about being the best possible version of yourself, or putting good energy into the universe, or any sort of positive thinking bullshit. You could do all of those things, and still wind up dead, or miserable, or both.

He _did_ want to go home. It was all he’d wanted since waking up in the 21st century. But the home he wanted to go to was Peggy. His Peggy.

And that was never going to happen.

*

By the next morning, the suit was just over half-way charged. Reluctantly, he put on the clothes his counterpart had loaned him: high-waisted brown slacks, and a fine-knit tan turtleneck. There was a boxy jacket as well, the kind with pockets on the front, but he set that aside. Steve had worn some weird outfits in his day, but even he had his limits.

He’d just helped himself to a cup of coffee when Peggy breezed in, a waft of perfume in her wake—not the same one she’d worn during the war, but something similar, crisp and floral. She had on a navy pantsuit over a silky white blouse, everything tailored to a degree that made it clear her figure was still dynamite. She was bright-eyed, filled with an almost palpable energy, humming to herself as she brushed past him to fill the kettle.

While she waited for it to boil, she leaned against the counter, a thick wedge of the morning paper in one hand, scanning the headlines. The sunlight streaming through the kitchen window highlighted the silvery wave in her dark hair. Steve thought it was a nice look on her, though he knew better than to voice the observation.

Looking at her, he let himself imagine—just for a second—that he was her Steve. That this was their kitchen, their morning. And here she was, his partner of twenty-five years: beautiful, brilliant, stylish, and strong. Close enough that he could wrap both arms around her, without reaching, if he wanted to.

God, did he want to.

As if sensing the turn his thoughts had taken, she glanced up from her newspaper. “Hello there.” Her smile was warm. “You look better today.”

“Uh, thanks.” He dropped his gaze quickly, mortified to be caught staring.

“You can keep this sweater, if you like,” she said, leaning over to pet his arm. “It suits you.”

He picked up his coffee cup to hide his blush. His embarrassment suddenly twisted, sharpened, into annoyance—with her affectionate tone, with his stupid fantasy, with their entire situation.

Oblivious to the change in his mood, she kept her hand on his sleeve. “Howard will be here at ten. I’ve told him the basics, but I’m sure he’ll have questions. You’ll be all right?”

He nodded.

“Were you able to get some rest?”

“Oh, sure. Probably because no one zapped me in the ass while I was down for the count.”

The young Peggy, the Peggy he knew, would have risen to the bait and let him goad her into a fight. This Peggy just looked at him, amused. “Fair play,” she conceded. “In my defense, you had just incapacitated my husband. I assumed you could handle a mild electric shock.”

“Yeah,” said Steve, noncommittal.

She drew away from him, carefully, with a look of pity that irritated him even more. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”

“Actually, I thought I’d see if Howard’s got anywhere for me to stay. Since I don’t know how long I’m gonna be stuck here.”

“Oh.” Now she _did_ look hurt. There was a petty, childish part of him that was pleased to have broken through her implacable facade. “Well. All right. In that case… good luck.”

She was out the door before the kettle whistled. 

Steve was instantly sorry. He thought about chasing after her, but he was supposed to be staying out of sight. 

He‘d be better off staying with Howard. It would give him time to put his emotions in check. Everything else aside—which was already a massive aside—she was a married woman. Things didn’t need to get any more complicated.

*

Howard, who arrived right on schedule, provided a welcome distraction. 

As expected, he began peppering Steve with questions about the future before he’d even unpacked his tools. Were there flying cars? Jet packs? Two-way television? Robot butlers?

What Steve _hadn’t_ expected was how many of Howard’s expressions and mannerisms would seem intimately familiar. He hadn’t realized; he’d never known Howard at this stage in his life. The way he rattled off scientific explanations as though everyone listening had his obsessive passion for the subject, yet failed to recall ordinary garden-variety words in his excitement; the dramatic little flourishes with his hands; the faces he made when he was holding back a rude comment; all of those things were pure Tony.

And, as it happened, Howard’s unique insight into Tony’s thought process was what saved the day. Because after going over the watch and the suit thoroughly, the first thing he did was to ask for the manual.

“Doesn’t look like there is one,” said Steve, scrolling through the watch’s features.

“It wouldn’t be there,” said Howard dismissively, spreading the suit out on the kitchen table with a surgical precision that was reminiscent of Tony working on the Iron Man. He took a penlight out of his tool case, flicked it on, and tucked it into the corner of his mouth, like a cigar. “It has to be analog. What good is a manual you can only use as long as your operating system is running?”

Steve didn’t have an answer to that.

After spending ten minutes carefully unlocking and removing every detachable piece he could see, Howard found what he was looking for printed on the inside of the suit’s back panel: a little round dot, about the diameter of a pencil lead.

He swapped his penlight for a magnifier, hunching over to examine the dot. “I knew it,” he breathed.

“What?”

“It’s a microdot. We use these all the time. You can put hundreds of document pages into a fraction of an inch. And photographs, and schematics, and…” He trailed off, absorbed in his reading.

Steve nudged him to get his attention, then handed him the nanotech sunglasses. “There’s a magnifier setting.”

“Beautiful,” said Howard, putting them on. “And stylish. I don’t suppose you’d let me have these to remember you by?”

“Nice try.”

Howard read in silence for a good ten minutes before straightening up with a groan. “Getting old is a sucker’s game.” He rolled his shoulders, producing a crackling noise. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Steve moved to one side so he could sit down. “Find anything useful?”

He tapped the dot. “According to this, the suit comes equipped with a failsafe. It’s supposed to yank you back to your own time if you start to go off-course, like a—you know, like a—one of these.” He mimed the action of reeling in a fish.

“So how do I turn that on?”

“It’s _always_ on,” said Howard impatiently. “What good would it be if you had to stop and figure out how to turn it on? It’s a failsafe, not a woman.” He grinned at his own joke.

“Hilarious,” said Steve. “Can you fix it?”

“I can't even tell where it’s broken. It doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with the software. And I don’t know enough about the hardware to be able to do more than guess.”

“Then give me your best guess.”

“Well… you say some of this is Hank’s tech, right? Maybe we could get it to run on Pym particles.”

“It _does_ run on Pym particles,” said Steve, feeling like he’d wandered into an absurdist play. “Doesn’t it?”

“You’d think so. But Pym particles are red. Whatever you’ve got in the tank is green.”

“What?”

Howard opened the suit’s hip panel, extracted one of the tubes, and showed it to Steve. The substance inside was metallic and viscous, pulsating with an eerily familiar green light.

_You’ll pay for this, Avenger_ , Loki had said. And then he’d reached out his hand—

He hadn’t been randomly travelling between realities because of some unseen flaw in the design. He’d been travelling between realities because Loki had tampered with his suit.

The tricky little bastard.

Howard held the vial up to the light, squinting at it. “What is this stuff?”

“What do you know about Norse mythology?”

He looked at Steve blankly.

“Never mind. Not relevant.” He plucked the tube from Howard’s hand. “I think you figured it out. This batch of Pym particles is contaminated. Can you get me some clean ones?”

Howard clicked his tongue. “You’d be better off getting Peggy to ask Hank directly. He respects her more than he respects me. Not that that’s a high bar to step over.”

Guiltily, Steve recalled the look on her face as she’d walked out of the kitchen that morning. “Can you give it a shot? I don’t know if she’ll be in the mood to do me any favours.”

Howard stared at him in disbelief. “You know, I forgot just how dumb you used to be about women.”

“Thanks,” said Steve dryly.

Howard stood up slowly, and started packing up his tools. “I’ll talk to him. But you owe me one for this. At least I know I’ll be there to collect.”

Steve schooled his features into a neutral expression. “You think so?”

Howard held up the nanotech sunglasses. Etched into the inner temple was the Stark Industries logo. “I guess you can’t tell me anything about it.”

“No.” Steve could have kicked himself for not thinking of it. He pocketed the glasses quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“Listen. I just want to know one small thing.” His tone was casual; his hands fiddled with his hat, turning it over and over. “My son, Tony. You must’ve seen him. Is he… does he turn out all right? Or does he take after his old man?”

Steve thought back on his interactions with Tony. They’d been largely confrontational. Steve was pretty good at keeping his cool in most situations, and he’d respected Tony for sticking to a moral code, even one that differed from his own—but Tony had always known just when to needle him, how to get under his skin in the most personal way possible, and Steve had responded in kind. His showman’s instincts and never-ending supply of patter often set Steve’s teeth on edge, even on a good day. And there had been a lot of not-so-good days.

But when it really counted, when the chips were down and lives were at stake, Tony had been there, every time. He’d been invaluable in a fight: always a few steps ahead, willing to work collaboratively, committed to the greatest possible good. His creative thinking, his refusal to yield in the face of impossible odds and, ultimately, his sacrifice, had played a key part in Thanos’s defeat.

Quietly, Steve said, “I think he’ll make his old man proud.”

“I knew it,” Howard declared, jamming the hat onto his head and picking up his tool case. “Okay. See you around, pal.”

Steve forced a smile, feeling sick to his stomach. “You bet.”

*

The other Steve came home that evening with a briefcase full of Pym particles, and Steve made the switch. He didn’t particularly want to keep the batch Loki had tampered with, but it seemed grossly irresponsible to leave them behind where someone could get their hands on them, so he packed them away carefully in his miniaturized case.

The evening meal was TV dinners, the little trays even more underwhelming when served at opposite ends of the large dining table.

No sooner had they sat down than the phone rang. His double took the call in the kitchen, stretching the cord as far back as it would go. He wasn’t on long, speaking so quietly that Steve could only make out one word, before returning to the dining room.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, broken only by the sounds of silverware scraping against foil, Steve made an attempt at conversation.

“Why ‘Boots’?”

“Long story,” he said, around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

“Yeah, and? You got somewhere else to be?”

His opposite number looked irritated, but put down his knife and fork. “I was leaving to go on tour. Victory tour. I wasn’t going to see her for another three months, at least. And of course I was too chickenshit to—well, you were there. You know. Anyhow. So I was trying to find her and say goodbye properly. Only she wasn’t in any of her usual spots. I found out later, she was looking for _me_ in the barracks.” He snickered. “So I finally catch up to her—and at this point, I’ve got a staff car waiting to take me to a train, that’s gonna take me to a boat, and so on—I only had seconds to spare, so instead of telling her anything, I just laid one on her.” He cleared his throat. “And that was pretty much that. I said I’d write, she said she’d write, and then I took off running to catch my ride. And of course, when I got there, Phillips wanted to know what was so all-fired important that I’d risk blowing the whole tour schedule. And the only thing I could think of to say was that I had to go back for my boots.”

Steve whistled appreciatively. “Smooth. What’d Phillips say?”

“‘Boots, huh? Is that what you’re calling her now?’” he growled, in a fair impersonation of Chester Phillips.

“How’d he know?”

“Lipstick.”

Steve smiled in spite of himself. “Must’ve been one hell of a kiss.” 

“It really was,” he said fondly. It was clear how much he loved her—how much he was _in_ love with her, still, after a quarter-century together.

“I… we never… we missed our window,” Steve confessed.

His double nodded. “I figured.”

They looked at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“Listen,” began Steve.

“No.”

He bristled. “You don’t even know what I was—”

“I know my own face. You can’t tell us what’s gonna happen. It’s not worth screwing everything up.”

“Not everything. Just one thing. _Please_.”

An almost imperceptible nod.

“Arnim Zola.”

Older Steve winced. “I was never on board with that. Neither was Peggy. She was overruled by the Council.”

“I'm not trying to guilt trip you,” said Steve impatiently. “Zola is using SHIELD to rebuild HYDRA, right now, today. It’s already started. I saw the evidence myself. And in two years, you’re going to move HQ to D.C., and he’s going to transfer his consciousness out of his dying body and into a supercomputer in the sub-basement of the Camp Lehigh bunker. He’ll use all that extra time and brainpower to start churning out technological siege engines. And no one will find any of this out for decades.”

“Jesus.”

“He helps create brainwashed super-soldier assassins. He writes an algorithm that predicts who HYDRA’s enemies will be, so they can target and kill them. He develops a neurotoxin, it’s used to destabilize unfriendly governments—” Steve swallowed the lump in his throat and willed steadiness into his voice. “By giving their leaders early onset Alzheimer’s. They test that one out in the 1990s.”

“And that’s—is that—who do they use it on?”

“Their biggest threat,” said Steve. “The director of SHIELD.”

Abruptly, older Steve pushed his chair away from the table. He sat for a long time, not speaking. Then he walked over to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and took out a pad of paper and a pencil. He laid them down in front of Steve.

“I want everything you’ve got,” he said grimly.

Steve began to write.

*

By ten, the quantum suit was fully charged, all of the contaminated vials had been swapped out for fresh Pym particles, and Howard was confident that the suit’s failsafe would take Steve back to his own timeline. Steve had written down everything he could recall about HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD.

Peggy still wasn’t home.

“Sometimes she pulls an all-nighter,” said his counterpart. “You can stay in the den one more night.”

“I should probably just go.”

“Son, don’t be an idiot your whole life.”

“I guess you’d know,” Steve shot back.

“Well,” he said meditatively, “I know what a waste of time it is to argue with me when my mind’s made up.” He held out his hand. “Good luck, Steve.”

Steve wanted to say something meaningful. But nothing came to mind. So he said, “You too, Steve,” and shook his own hand, hopefully for the last time.

*

Just after midnight, the back door quietly opened and closed. He heard the click of high heels on the kitchen tile.

“Steve?”

“Yeah.”

She came in. Her face looked like she might have been crying. She stopped short when she saw him; he wasn’t the Steve she’d expected to be waiting up for her.

He wondered whether she’d stayed away on purpose.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Howard told me he’d fixed everything.”

“Yeah. I’m all set. I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Oh.”

He stood up.

“Right this second?” she asked, bleakly.

He nodded.

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay? Start fresh in the morning?”

“I have to get this done.” He demasked the suit. “And I’m screwing things up for you more and more the longer I’m here.”

Her hands fluttered at her waist. 

“Hey.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“Of course it will. But I hope…” She caught his hand in both of hers, squeezing it hard. “Wherever you land, I hope you’ll be with people who care about you. I hate to think of you out there all alone.”

“I’ve got people. Don’t worry.” Teasingly, he added, “And I have it on very good authority that I’m ‘awfully handsome.’ So I’ll do all right.”

She dropped his hand, turning pink. “Of _course_ you could hear us,” she said, sounding furious with herself. “No wonder you were uncomfortable this morning. I’m so sorry.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” he said quickly. He’d only meant to tease, not to embarrass her. “You didn’t know. And I was a jerk about it. It's been tough to be here, to see you two together, because I never got to have that for myself. But… I think it’s been good for me too. I always wondered how it would’ve worked out between us.”

“And now we’ll never know.” Her cheeks dimpled. “All because you missed a trick when I asked to see your time travel underwear.”

He smiled. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Something like panic rose up in his chest. He knew he shouldn’t say it, but he couldn’t stop himself. If he’d learned anything from all this, it was that there was no such thing as the right time or place. 

“Peggy, I—I love you.”

Her mouth trembled. “I know, Steve.”

She stepped closer, took his face in her hands, tenderly, and kissed him.

It wasn’t the kind of kiss that invited further participation. But there was the incredible softness of her lips against his, the warm weight of her in his arms. Afterwards, she laid her head on his shoulder. Her hair smelled faintly of lavender.

It was more than he had any right to ask for. And it would have to be enough.

When he finally opened his eyes, she was gazing up at his face, his cheek still cradled in her palm. “Safe travels, my darling,” she whispered. 

Then, at last, she let him go.

He kept his eyes on hers until her face shimmered out of view.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In interviews, Tilda Swinton mentioned that the Ancient One's gender is "in the eye of the beholder," which is how I've written the character here. I know they use she/her in the film. I'm not bothered.

**MANHATTAN**  
**2012**  
**(third time’s the charm)**

This time around, everything was right on cue: the Chitauri, the Avengers, Stark Tower. His younger self, fresh out of the ice, complete with corny one-liners and unwavering trust in SHIELD’s agenda.

He got into and out of Stark Tower with relatively little trouble, handing off the sceptre to one of the STRIKE goons with the excuse that something had come up.

Next stop, Bleecker Street.

From what Bruce and Dr. Strange had been able to tell him about the genderless, ageless entity known as the Ancient One, they would be fairly easy to spot.

However, it was they who spotted Steve. The front door swung open a second ahead of his knock, and he was sucked inside, his boots gliding silently along the carpeted hallway.

“Steve Rogers.”

“That’s right,” said Steve, somewhat unnecessarily.

They led him through a house packed with curiosities, into a vast library. Without quite knowing how he got there, Steve found himself seated in a comfy chair, with an earthenware cup in his hand. The cup was steaming hot, filled with a clear liquid that smelled faintly grassy.

“It’s green tea,” said the Ancient One, in answer to the question Steve hadn’t asked. 

Steve wondered what it was about him that made people immediately peg him for a tea drinker. 

Still, Sarah Rogers hadn’t raised her son to turn his nose up at a kindness. He took an obliging sip—and was surprised to find his tea had transformed into strong black coffee.

Their smile was faint, but knowing. “Cream or sugar?”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

“I understand you have something for me.”

He glanced around for somewhere to put his cup down, only to look back at his hand and find it had disappeared. “Now you’re just showing off,” he said mildly.

“One must find some joy in life.”

He pulled the case into his lap and opened it. “Dr. Banner said to say thank you again, by the way.”

The Ancient One flicked their wrist, and the stone rose up and floated across to them. “You saved this one for last,” they observed, “because it tempted you the most.”

He considered hedging, but there didn’t seem to be much point. “Yeah.”

“You have had a lifetime stolen from you. It’s only natural that you’d want to reclaim it. Why didn’t you?”

“The way I understand it, if we don’t put all the stones back where we found them, we doom the timeline they were taken from.”

The Ancient One nodded gravely.

“I couldn’t do that just to make my own life better.”

“You’re a good man.”

Steve didn’t want to argue, but he thought that was setting the bar pretty low. Especially after everything he’d seen.

“This burden should never have been yours to bear. Unfortunately, reversing the flow of time to such an extent goes against every principle I’ve sworn to uphold as Sorcerer Supreme. But I can offer you... a compromise.”

“Okay,” said Steve, cautiously.

“You wish to be reunited with Peggy Carter.”

Steve swallowed hard. “I do, yeah.”

“I cannot return you to any point in time where another version of you is already in place.”

“It’d cause a paradox, I guess?”

“No. It’s just very awkward.”

He probably should have seen that one coming.

“However…” They opened their palm, conjuring a golden hexagon of light. “You’ve seen that there are many realities that border our own. Similar, but not identical.”

Other hexagons appeared alongside the first. They expanded into a glowing honeycomb, each cell of which showed one of the versions of Peggy he’d just met: the conqueror, the soldier, the diplomat. And there were others, too—dozens, then hundreds, of Peggy Carters.

The Ancient One beckoned, and one of the cells enlarged. Within it, a series of images flashed by, like a film in fast motion: the _Valkyrie_ , crashing on rocks, and breaking apart in a bright blue shockwave. Howard and his team recovering a lifeless figure from the wreckage. A funeral, complete with 21-gun salute.

“It is the world you knew, in every respect but one. A world that has lost its Steve Rogers. I could send you there. Your arrival would create a new branch of reality, leaving the original unchanged. And there would be no danger of encountering your alternate self.”

And there it was: as close to a second chance as he was likely to get.

“It’s a generous offer,” he began.

“But?”

“But… it’s not only my choice to make.”

The Ancient One flipped the frame with a flick of their long fingers, showing Steve the same events from a new perspective: Peggy, seated at a silent radio console, her head in her hands; Peggy, standing on a dock in the rain, watching Howard’s crew respectfully unload a long box; Peggy, graveside, stone-faced, wedged between Dugan and Falsworth. Peggy, on the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset, holding back tears as she whispered _bye, my darling_.

They had a shared past. They’d been in love. They’d both been kept from living the life they wanted, with the person they wanted, because of sheer dumb luck. Was that enough?

He’d never know unless he asked.

Steve took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said.

**WASHINGTON, D.C.**  
**1949**

Predictably, Peggy tried to shoot him the moment he appeared on her doorstep. 

He had no idea it was even _possible_ to aim a pistol through a mail slot. He’d packed the shield away, hoping to avoid a repeat of the compass incident; if it wasn’t for the quantum suit and his quick reflexes, the situation might have been dire.

Still, it made a refreshing change from fighting with his various alter-egos, he supposed.

After about a half-hour of talking, some of it very repetitive, he managed to convince her to take the chain off the door and let him inside.

The house wasn’t at all like he’d imagined.

The Rogerses’ bungalow in 1970 had been thoughtfully decorated. The furniture had all fit into a broad colour scheme, and had been modern, for the time period. The decor had a distinct style to it, a style that definitely wasn’t Steve’s alone.

Peggy’s house, by contrast, didn’t seem to have much of an overarching aesthetic, other than… stuff. Lots of it.

The living room was relatively tidy. The sideboard and china hutch did not match, aside from being made of dark wood; both were ornate and solid, their shelves crammed full of gold-edged plates and curios. The small, squat sofa was identical to one his mother had owned second-hand—Peggy’s had jazzier upholstery, and fewer stains. 

The dining room, visible through an alcove, was crowded with sculptures, tapestries, and oil paintings in heavy, baroque frames. None of it seemed to have been selected with any real purpose. Steve felt like he was standing in the middle of someone’s yard sale.

“Nice place,” he said, politely.

Her look made it clear she wasn’t buying it.

“Most of this belonged to my parents. I sold the house, but I wasn’t sure what to do with their things.”

He remembered now: her brother had been killed in action, and her parents had lost their lives in an air raid. In a few short years, the war had claimed her entire family.

“Howard was kind enough to have everything brought over. I haven’t quite managed to…” She shrugged helplessly.

He nodded. He’d been the same, after the Snap: it had felt disrespectful to throw away the things that had belonged to his friends, but he couldn’t bring himself to use them, either. After a while, he’d started to feel like he was living in a shrine to the fallen.

“Let me know if I can do anything,” he said. “I’m not much of a decorator, but I can usually get a picture to hang level. And I don’t mind heavy lifting.”

She stared at him, as though he’d suggested they take a day trip to the moon. 

“I suppose you wouldn’t,” she said at last. “May I ask you a question?”

“Just one?” He smiled.

She didn’t smile back, didn’t look at him. 

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“What happened to the _Valkyrie_ in your world?”

“That… mostly happened the same way,” he said carefully. “In my version, I survived the crash, but wound up in a coma. For almost seventy years.”

She nodded, blinking hard. Then she turned and disappeared into the kitchen without a word.

He didn’t think she expected or wanted him to follow.

At a loss for anything else to do, he took a lap around the room: peering at all the little tchotchkes in the china hutch, lifting the lid of the radio cabinet to peek inside.

The only sign that this _was_ Peggy’s home, and not an antique store, was the neat row of photos on the mantel. He recognized many of them from the Rogerses’ spare room in 1970—Peggy and her brother, Peggy and the boys, Peggy and Howard. At least one was new to him: Peggy and another girl, in pin curls, light summery dresses, and sunglasses, grinning and pointing to the Hollywoodland sign.

And in the corner, unframed: small Steve Rogers, with a slack-jawed squint and a cowlick. He’d seen this one in her office in 1970, the first time. It was hard to imagine a more unflattering picture.

A gentle clink of crockery in the hall alerted him to Peggy’s return. She came in bearing a tea service on a silver tray. 

He crossed the room, ready to help, but she waved him away and set the tray down on the sideboard, then gestured for him to sit. A plume of steam rose from the teapot’s curved spout.

“Will you take milk, or just sugar?” 

“Uh, both, please.”

Their fingers touched as she handed him the cup and saucer. They felt small and delicate in his hands. Everything suddenly seemed fragile.

She served herself, paused a moment, then bent down to retrieve a squat, round-shouldered bottle from the sideboard’s lower shelf. “A little something to steady my nerves, I think.” She gave her own cup a quick top-up before offering the bottle. The label wasn’t one he recognized, but the words _Kentucky’s best bourbon_ were easily legible.

He shook his head. “It’s wasted on me, remember?”

“I do, yes.” She put the bourbon back and sat down opposite him on the hard-backed sofa.

“Was that a test?”

“If it was,” she took a genteel sip of her tea, “do you think you passed?”

“You haven’t shot me yet.”

“Touché.” 

“I gotta ask,” he said, pointing to the photo on the mantel. “What’d I do to deserve that?”

“I stole it from work,” she said, smiling faintly. “There weren’t many options.”

Steve was touched by the admission, but couldn’t help teasing her. “Come on. They were taking my picture about once a week for two solid years. You couldn’t find one where I had my eyes open?”

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone what I did in the war. It might look a bit odd if I had Captain America hanging about next to my brother and my parents.”

“It’s the same face,” he pointed out.

“Nearly. You look dreadful,” she observed.

The comment surprised a laugh out of him. “Thanks.”

“I mean, you look sad, and worried. And tired.”

“Mostly just the last one.”

“You’re actually still quite handsome. Much nicer than your photograph.”

“And taller.”

“Not if I put it up high,” she said gravely.

“You got me there.”

Her gaze hardened. “Tell me your worst fear.”

It was a hell of a conversational turn. “Why?”

“Because I want to know everything. We may as well start from there, and work our way back.”

And just like that, there she was: the Peggy he knew. Smart, practical, unconventional. Eager to know what she was dealing with. Ready to face the worst and duke it out.

“I fought another version of me, in another timeline. He was jealous, self-absorbed, egotistical, violent, vengeful—all the worst qualities I’ve ever seen in myself, taken to the worst possible extreme.”

She waited.

“So I guess that’s my worst fear. That the only thing keeping me from being a bad person is… lack of opportunity.”

“Was I there too? Another me?”

He should have seen this coming. “Yeah, but—”

“And was she just as awful?”

“Maybe worse,” he admitted.

“I see. And yet, you aren’t worried that I’m going to murder you?”

“You did try to shoot me through the mail slot,” he reminded her.

She flapped her hand dismissively. “It’s not the postman’s day,” she said, as if that was the most reasonable leap of logic to make.

He shook his head, dumbfounded.

“If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re concerned that you may turn out to be a bad person, because an alternate version of you enjoyed doing bad things.”

When she put it like that, she made him sound ridiculous. Then again, this whole situation had reached the event horizon of ridiculous somewhere between throwing himself out a window and getting knocked unconscious by an umbrella.

“I was given a choice,” he said quietly. “To go back to the world I came from, or to come here. And the decision I made was selfish.”

Peggy stared fixedly at her hands, a crease in her brow.

“ _Self-sacrifice_ and _good_ are not synonyms, Steve,” she said abruptly. “You are a good man. You have the same right to happiness as anyone else. The world isn’t yours to save, nor should it be.” Her shoulders had started to tremble. “If you haven’t learnt that, in all your travels, I don’t know if I can let you into my life again.”

She wasn’t worried about the differences she saw in him. She was frightened by the similarities—by the possibility that he might repeat the decisions of their shared past.

“Peggy,” he said gently. “What I mean is, it was selfish of me to turn up here—to complicate your life, to burden you with information about a future that may or may not happen—without knowing for sure if it was what _you_ would want.”

“ _Oh,_ ” she breathed.

“I knew that, and I still came. Because I couldn’t throw away a second chance—I had to see if it was possible for us to build something together. And now I’m here, and if I’m going to _stay_ here, I need to know. Is that what you want?”

Her eyes were rimmed with red, but they met his, unfailingly. “You’re still Steve Rogers.”

It wasn’t the answer to his question. At the same time, it was the only answer he needed.

“I hope so. That’s what it says on my underwear.”

She gave a shaky laugh, squeezing her hands together in her lap. “I don’t… I’ve no idea where to start.”

Neither did Steve. He was eager to take some kind of first step, but felt immobilized by the weight of possibility. Logistics, too, were an issue—he might have suggested going for a walk, or going out to eat, but if they ran into someone she knew without getting their story straight, that could get complicated fast.

“I don’t suppose you’d fancy a game of canasta?”

He was pretty sure she was kidding. “Maybe just another cup of tea?”

“All right.”

As she stood, her red dress sparked something in his memory: a smoky bar, music, laughter. A beautiful dame who only had eyes for him.

“Wait. Peggy.”

She turned.

“How about—a dance?”

There was a glimmer in her dark eyes. “You don’t think it’s too late?”

“I don’t think we can know that until we try.”

She wavered a moment, then went over to the radio cabinet in the corner. “We said we’d start with a slow number. Let’s see if fortune is in our favour.”

Steve winced at her phrasing. Fortune hadn’t been very much in his favour so far.

She clicked the dial.

A burst of static gave way to the dreamy woodwinds of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Steve stood up, smiling. “I think that’s our cue.”

He expected a little awkwardness, but she slipped her hand into his, and folded herself comfortably against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and they began to turn, slowly.

He trampled her toes in seconds.

The shoes she had on were practical ones, built to take such punishment. Still, he apologized, confessing, “I never did learn how to do this.”

She lifted her head to look at him incredulously. “Not once, in all that time?”

“Nope. Never found the right partner.”

She gave a little snort. He thought she might be snickering at the corniness of his delivery, until he saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Do you want to stop?”

“No,” she said fiercely, and tucked her head under his chin.

They swayed, clutching one another tightly, through ‘The Nearness of You,’ two songs Steve didn’t recognize, and a pause for station identification. 

A brassy lilt blared from the radio. Steve knew this one: he’d even had the record, back when he’d lived in D.C., though he’d almost never played it.

Peggy had relaxed into his arms. Her cheek rested against his; her hand had found its way to the middle of his back. They were still in the same spot, moving in lazy circles, the afternoon sun streaming through the window.

When he moved to kiss her, she met him more than halfway: eyes closed, lips parted. A soft, sweet kiss. Filled with promise, and something else, something Steve wasn’t sure he still had left in him until he felt it: hope.

Abruptly, an announcer launched into an enthusiastic pitch, shilling all-weather tires with such earnestness that Steve couldn’t quite suppress a chuckle.

“Do they not have radio adverts in the future?” Peggy murmured, smiling against his lips.

“No, they do.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Shaving supplies, electric toothbrushes, mattresses by mail… all kinds of useful things.” 

“Hmm.” She ran her fingernails lightly along the back of his neck. “And are you always so easily distracted by them?”

Taking that as a challenge, he kissed her all the way through an ad for coal, and another one for cigarettes.

When the music started again, it was her turn to break away. “What do you think?”

“I thought that was pretty nice. How about you?”

“I—the song, I meant,” she said, sounding flustered. “Are you ready for a quick one?”

He let the words hover in the air for a minute, watching her turn a very appealing shade of pink.

“Sure,” he said at last, loosening his hold on her. “Lead the way.”

“Watch my feet.”

Steve did watch her feet—at first. But he couldn’t help admiring the way the afternoon light curved over the muscles of her calves, or the airy swirl of her dress that followed each twist of her hips. He’d seen her in a fight enough times to know that she could move with agility, precision, and confidence; watching her now, he added to the list grace, style, and sheer sex appeal.

When called to account, he couldn’t replicate a single one of the steps she’d shown him.

Peggy resorted to marching him back and forth, pace by pace, her hands on his waist.

“I feel like I’m back in Basic.”

“I don’t remember you being this bad in Basic,” she retorted, turning him forcefully to the left. “One, two, and—no, not that way…”

“ _I_ remember _you_ being this bad in Basic.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Granted,” said Steve, cheekily.

Her eyes snapped up to his, her expression ominous. For a second, he thought she might be about to haul off and smack him. But she hauled off and kissed him instead, insistently and emphatically. 

He leaned into it, crushing her close, lifting her right up off the floor. She made a soft sound of approval, hands splayed across his back.

When he set her down again, both of them were breathing hard. Peggy was giving him serious bedroom eyes. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to sweep her off her feet and carry her upstairs; he may not have known much about dancing, but he was well-schooled in the other ways two bodies could move together.

But there was time for all that.

“Maybe this would work better if I took my shoes off,” he suggested.

They both kicked off their shoes, gliding across the hardwood in socks and stockings. When he missed a turn or took a wrong step, he compensated with comical faces or pratfalls, anything to make her smile.

It didn’t take long for him to catch the rhythm—he was already learning the way she liked to move, enjoying the fit of her body against his. The real trick wasn’t knowing where to step: it was learning to turn aside and let her go, following his own course, trusting that she’d always come back.

At the top of the hour, the music faded away, replaced by a brisk news report. Peggy switched off the radio, then turned to look at him expectantly.

“Where do you keep your dance records?” he asked.

“Are you _quite_ sure you wouldn’t rather play canasta, darling?” Her colour was high, her grin impish. “It might be more your speed.”

“Are you kidding?” Steve grabbed her by the waist and turned them both with a flourish, pulling her close. “I can do this all day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Indie! I wrote this story with you in mind, in the sense that I tried to cover off as many of the tropes that you love to see in one story; however, I also think of this as a loving homage to the many amazing stories you yourself have written. I hope it gives you as much joy as those stories have given me and others. You’re the best, buddy. Happy belated holidays.


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